A Day in the Life of
by A Scary Man
Summary: A brief and (hopefully) amusing account of a typical day in the lives of various characters. First up is Sabretooth. (please review)


A/N: depending on how well this chapter is received, I may do further characters.

Chapter One: A Day in the Life of Sabretooth – Morning 

When Sabretooth woke that morning, he immediately wished he hadn't. He'd had some bad hangovers in his time, but this was something else. His head felt as if a thousand small men with hob-nailed boots were dancing a fandango on his skull. His stomach felt as if a pit of energetic eels were holding some kind of party inside it. His throat felt like it had been scraped raw by a cheese-grater. He opened his eyes, and instantly regretted it. The early morning sun burned into his eyes like a high-powered laser, increasing the tempo of the fandango inside his head. He fell out of bed and stumbled downstairs to find some coffee.

Sabretooth wasn't what you would call a morning person. Nor was he what you would call an afternoon or evening person, but morning was definitely his least favourite time of day. Irritable and bad-tempered at the best of times, he was at his most irascible in the early hours before noon. Particularly when he had a hangover. Thus it was that he found himself staggering into the sanctuary's kitchen, to find Mystique hunched over the table, staring blankly at the floor. Three empty mugs of coffee sat in front of her. Evidently they had not had the desired effect, as she was now spooning raw coffee out of a bowl, swallowing it a mouthful at a time. She looked up blearily as Sabretooth entered the room, and muttered weakly, "Remind me never to let Toad mix drinks again."

Sabretooth grunted his agreement, and began opening the kitchen cupboards, searching for the coffee jar. When he finally found it – in the fridge, for reasons his exhausted and painful head couldn't be bothered to fathom – he unscrewed the top, finding to his dismay that it was empty. Sabretooth growled and looked over to where Mystique was possessively clutching her bowl of coffee, the only coffee left in the kitchen.

"Give me that coffee," he said in a threatening tone.

Mystique shook her head. Sabretooth extended his claws and tried to look menacing, but in his current hung-over and half-asleep state, he was about as scary as a blind wombat. She ignored him. Sabretooth growled again, and launched himself across the kitchen, sinking his claws into her throat, pulling the bowl of coffee out of her dead fingers. At least, that was what he intended. What actually happened was that he tripped over his own feet, hit his head on the fridge door, and collapsed in a heap, no nearer to obtaining any coffee.

"You shouldn't make so much noise," Mystique winced, clutching her head.

"Why not?"

"Because Magneto's not in a very good mood."

She jerked her thumb towards the door that led to the sitting room. Sabretooth got to his feet and poked his head through the door to take a look. Magneto lay slumped on the sofa, an ice-pack pressed to his forehead, mumbling under his breath; Sabretooth couldn't make out the words.

"That was quite some party last night," said Mystique.

"Yeah…" he agreed. "I've never seen Magneto singing before."

"I have – once. I'd rather not talk about it."

"Fair enough. Where's Toad?"

"Dunno. He left earlier this morning."

At that moment they heard a door slamming and Toad's voice yelling, "Guys?"

Sabretooth and Mystique both winced, and they heard Magneto stirring in the other room, as Toad entered the kitchen, carrying something in both hands.

"Bad news, guys," said Toad. "My sister's out of town for a few days, and she asked me to look after her kids."

The object he was holding turned out to be a baby carrier, containing two sleeping infants – twins.

"Sister? You've got a family?" Sabretooth asked.

"Of course I've got a family," said Toad, sounding hurt. "What did you think?"

"I dunno; I always assumed you'd been _found_."

Toad put the baby carrier on the kitchen table, and said, "Keep an eye on them for a minute; I've got to go upstairs and get some stuff."

He left the room, and Sabretooth leaned over the carrier, looking suspiciously at the two babies. His experience of looking after children was precisely none. Sabretooth had no children, well, none that he knew of, and had never envisaged himself as a family man. He lifted the first baby out of the carrier for a closer look. It had woken up by this point, and began tugging on his hair. Angrily he disentangled its fingers, and put it back, picking up the second one. Thankfully this one remained asleep.

Sabretooth decided the second baby had more meat on it, and carried it over to the stove, putting a pan of water on the hob to boil. It needed something else…chilli sauce. Holding the baby in one arm, Sabretooth began looking through the cupboards for chilli sauce. One of the cupboards was entirely full of cans of mushroom soup; he didn't really want to know why. In one of his rare philosophical moments, Sabretooth began to ponder where this food actually came from. He'd never seen any evidence of deliveries being made to the sanctuary, and the only other explanation was that Magneto went out and bought it himself. Try as he might, Sabretooth couldn't quite picture Magneto, the arch-villain, pushing a trolley around a supermarket. It was possible that some food was grown on the island; Toad kept a small vegetable garden, where he grew a variety of poisonous and carnivorous plants. But that certainly wouldn't account for most of their supplies. It was a mystery, one that Sabretooth was determined to solve…

…some other time. Perhaps after he had found the chilli sauce and had breakfast. The baby had woken up now and was squirming in his grasp. Like its twin, it seemed fascinated by Sabretooth's hair, grabbing hold and pulling tightly. He growled angrily and held the child at arm's length, where its little hands could do no more than pluck at the fabric of his shirt.

"Chilli sauce, chilli sauce," he muttered. "Where the hell is it?"

Before long, he had looked in all the cupboards, and failed to find it. Snarling furiously, he decided he'd just have to do without it. He made his way back over to the cooker, and prepared to drop the baby into the now-boiling water.

They heard the door open, and Toad's voice saying, "Hey, Sabe, have you seen – WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

"Stop shouting…" Mystique wailed, holding her head in pain.

Toad angrily snatched the baby away from Sabretooth, "I can't believe you were about to eat my nephew!"

Sabretooth had seen some horrific and disgusting things in his long and eventful life, but few were quite as nauseating as the sight of Toad now making adoring cooing noises at the baby. The infant giggled and started to drool on its uncle's sleeve. Toad, oblivious, lovingly cradled the child, and began singing to it. Sabretooth turned round to puke into the kitchen sink.


End file.
